Pluto, chien de garde

A Walt Disney PLUTO Cartoon.

A mangy coyote and his dimwitted son attempt to raid the cache of food supplies left by fishermen - not realizing that CAMP DOG Pluto has been left on guard.

This was the last of a short series of films featuring Bent-Tail & Bent- Tail, Junior as Pluto's antagonists. The animation is quite routine, but the story is humorous.

Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by drawings. As a lad in Marceline, Missouri, he sketched farm animals on scraps of paper; later, as an ambulance driver in France during the First World War, he drew figures on the sides of his vehicle. Back in Kansas City, along with artist Ub Iwerks, Walt developed a primitive animation studio that provided animated commercials and tiny cartoons for the local movie theaters. Always the innovator, his ALICE IN CARTOONLAND series broke ground in placing a live figure in a cartoon universe. Business reversals sent Disney & Iwerks to Hollywood in 1923, where Walt's older brother Roy became his lifelong business manager & counselor. When a mildly successful series with Oswald The Lucky Rabbit was snatched away by the distributor, the character of Mickey Mouse sprung into Walt's imagination, ensuring Disney's immortality. The happy arrival of sound technology made Mickey's screen debut, STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928), a tremendous audience success with its use of synchronized music. The SILLY SYMPHONIES soon appeared, and Walt's growing crew of marvelously talented animators were quickly conquering new territory with full color, illusions of depth and radical advancements in personality development, an arena in which Walt's genius was unbeatable. Mickey's feisty, naughty behavior had captured millions of fans, but he was soon to be joined by other animated companions: temperamental Donald Duck, intellectually-challenged Goofy and energetic Pluto. All this was in preparation for Walt's grandest dream - feature length animated films. Against a blizzard of doomsayers, Walt persevered and over the next decades delighted children of all ages with the adventures of Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi & Peter Pan. Walt never forgot that his fortunes were all started by a mouse, or that simplicity of message and lots of hard work always pay off.

Pluto's outings with the two father and son coyotes were great fun to watch, though admittedly they were cases of the supporting characters making more of an impression than Pluto. Camp Dog is the swan-song of theirs and my personal favourite, terrific both as a character swan-song and as a cartoon in general. The animation is still brightly coloured and fluidly drawn, very like a vast majority of the Disney cartoons of the 40s-50s. The music always has been a high point with the Disney short films made from the late 20s all the way through to the early 60s, and Camp Dog is no exception, it's still full of lively energy and lush orchestration. The story may seem routine with Pluto battling someone/something but it is so well-paced, the attempts of Coyote Junior dragging Pluto out of the tent(and most of the time with Pluto not awake) are surprisingly varied and not repetitive and the ending is a great change of pace, not how you expect it to end at all. The humour and the gags are what make Camp Dog so good. The gags are imaginative and above all hilarious, especially with Pluto waking up and rushing past Junior into the woods, the ending and the part with Junior actually inside the box where the food is kept as his father is trying to hold onto the rope(and I think you can guess what happens next, this part is filled with comedy and tension which is wonderful). Pluto is still sweet and of immense likability, not coming across as a bland character at all, and his rapport with the coyotes is great. But the coyotes steal the show, the contrasts between father and son are beautifully realised and the back and forth between the two makes for hilarious physical comedy. Overall, a terrific Pluto short and an equally terrific swan-song for the coyotes. 10/10 Bethany Cox

You could tell by first looking at the two coyotes (a male and his cub) that they're pretty dimwitted, especially the cub who, for some reason, wants to have Pluto for a meal. They attempt to sneak food from a camp site, avoiding Pluto, but of course, the dog wakes up and chases the coyotes around.

Like the other cartoons featuring the coyotes in them, this short is more of the same - lots of chasing around. Not too much humor or laughs.

Grade C